All the promises!!

I would be super happy with just Him and his love... but I can't help but get freaking excited when I think about the fact that EVERY SINGLE PROMISE of God is now a YES for me!! WOW! I mean, think about that! It's not selfishness, it's freeing! It is enabling! It is motivating! It is awe-inspiring! And it turns my gaze of wonder and amazement toward the Father who would allow his blessings to fall upon me. Realizations such as this are the ones that send us racing back to his feet in worship and thanksgiving!
Imagine, living a defeated life, never realizing all the gifts that our Father has given us in Christ? How sad that would be for a Father who desires to give us the richest abundant life possible, and all for HIS GLORY! What glory he gets knowing he has taken the lowliest of low humanity and elevated it to the heights of being actually RELATED to God himself! He did that. WHOOOO! Christ's blood flows through my veins, I am royalty, I am heir, I am so much more than I ever dreamed possible all because I accepted a simple gift I thought contained only eternal life, a Saviour, and love.
It makes me think of the TARDIS: Tiny little box, but when you look inside you marvel at all the glorious gifts and promises that have been crammed in there... How is it even possible?
Self-centered? NO! How could anyone even get a glimpse of all that was given to us at the moment of salvation and be selfish? I'm thinking that after crying my eyes out and hugging and kissing all over the giver I'd be out trying to give that gift to as many people as possible.

---a post I wrote on facebook. :)

Identity

A short little thing I wrote up for developmental psych class... thought it was more in keeping with this blog than my writing assignments blog. =)

My adolescent years were spent in a time of identity foreclosure in the areas of religion, politics, and vocation. I was raised in a very conservative Baptist home and I felt strong pressure to perform and conform, to please and to live up to the wishes of my parents and spiritual leaders. I was not apathetic towards self-discovery, Erik Erikson’s identity diffusion (Berger, 2008, p. 416), but I was afraid to question the status quo and accepted my parents’ identity instead.

After getting married, I began to actively explore my identity, even struggling with issues of sexual identity for a time. I realized I was not even saved. As Don Ratcliff said in his article “Adolescent Spirituality,” “merely having strict rules is not sufficient; it is all too easy to conform to rules but inwardly live a very different life. Spirituality is a matter of the inner person, not just the outward activity” (2002, p. 3). I came to Jesus when I was 20 years old and began progressing in spiritual growth all the while seeking my true identity. Sometimes this felt like the hills and valleys which Ratcliff (2002, p.3) describes and sometimes like Darling’s growth loops of assessment, confession, forgiveness, and appropriation of God’s strength (Ratcliff, 2002, p. 2).

Upon reading Steve McVey’s book “Grace Walk” (1995), God showed me that my identity was found solely in Christ. I began to devour books on grace and identity. I realized that I was already forgiven and that true growth was to be found by ceasing from my own struggles to perform and resting in Christ’s finished work on the cross, and by allowing him to live through me. Once I had a solid foundation of understanding that I was the bride of Christ who is loved, and accepted, in the beloved, a king (or queen!) seated in heavenly places, and a saint who has been placed in perfect union with Christ, I settled into identity achievement.

For me, college is not a time of moratorium, which is a time to put off choosing identity (Berger, 2008, p. 416). It is a time for me to shape my God given purpose that flows from my identity. I do not take my identity from my role of college student or any future career roles any more than from my role of wife or mother. These are just little parts of what constitutes the whole me.

References:
Berger, K. S. (2008). The developing person through the life span, 7th Ed. New York, NY: Worth
Publishers.
Ratcliff Ph.D., D. (2002). Adolescent spiritual development. Retrieved from
http://don.ratcliffs.net/books/adolescents.pdf

thoughts on Darin's podcast free believers network 4/29/2010

Had this saved as a draft, just never published it:

Being conformed to the image of Christ is simply Christ freeing you to be fully yourself without the bondage of the world! The bondage falls away, and the true self that Christ created is free to shine! :) -me

we are created in His image! As the world is stripped away, as religion is stripped away, what is left is the perfect creation that reflects Christ himself!!

I thank Jesus all the time for revealing this to me... I was always afraid that as I gave myself to him he would force me to be something terrible, something that I had no desire to be! But I was SOO wrong!

Ask, Seek, and Knock

October 1, 1007

Hey, I'm reading With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray (which is phenomenal so far BTW) and I ran into a really neat thought in chapter 5 page 33:

"In the three words the Lord uses, ask, seek, knock, a difference in meaning has been sought. If such was indeed His purpose, then the first, ASK, refers to the gifts we pray for. But I may ask and receive the gift without the Giver. SEEK is the word Scripture uses of God Himself; Christ assures me that I can find Himself. But it is not enough to find God in time of need, without coming to abiding fellowship: KNOCK speaks of admission to dwell with Him and in Him. Asking and receiving the gift would thus lead to seeking and finding the Giver, and this again to the knocking and opening of the door of the Father's home and love."

I just really love how his thought processes lead to a focus on the indwelling Christ. Christ in you! I am reminding of the verse in Revelation where Christ stands at the door and knocks and wants to come in and sup with his church. To fellowship... to dwell...

We focus so much on this verse in the context of what "I can get" from God and all the time He is saying "Sure, I have much to give you to bless your life, but the supreme blessing is FINDING me and KNOWING me and ABIDING in me and I in you!"

It just hit me really hard this morning for some reason.

Co-crucifixion

Aug 8, 2007

Excerpt from My Utmost for His Highest

Complete and Effective Decision About Sin
"… our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin" (Romans 6:6).
Co-Crucifixion. Have you made the following decision about sin—that it must be completely killed in you? It takes a long time to come to the point of making this complete and effective decision about sin. It is, however, the greatest moment in your life once you decide that sin must die in you—not simply be restrained, suppressed, or counteracted, but crucified—just as Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world. No one can bring anyone else to this decision. We may be mentally and spiritually convinced, but what we need to do is actually make the decision that Paul urged us to do in this passage.
Pull yourself up, take some time alone with God, and make this important decision, saying, "Lord, identify me with Your death until I know that sin is dead in me." Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death.
This was not some divine future expectation on the part of Paul, but was a very radical and definite experience in his life. Are you prepared to let the Spirit of God search you until you know what the level and nature of sin is in your life—to see the very things that struggle against God's Spirit in you? If so, will you then agree with God's verdict on the nature of sin—that it should be identified with the death of Jesus? You cannot "reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin" (6:11) unless you have radically dealt with the issue of your will before God.
Have you entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ, until all that remains in your flesh and blood is His life? "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me …" (Galatians 2:20).

The Chastisement of our Peace

Isaiah 53:5 KJV
But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Learned something for the first time at prayer meeting Thursday... As many times as I have read this verse, I never pondered the significance of the chastisement of our peace being upon Jesus. Sure, he shed his blood for our sins, and his body was beaten so that we could have physical healing, but what does it mean when it says the chastisement of our peace was upon him?
He not only died so that we could be redeemed, and so that we could have healing, but also so that we could have peace... not only peace with God, but peace of mind! He rebuked that which kept us from being at peace. In the Hebrew this word peace has many different meanings which I will list here:

1) completeness, soundness, welfare, peace

a) completeness (in number)

b) safety, soundness (in body)

c) welfare, health, prosperity

d) peace, quiet, tranquillity, contentment

e) peace, friendship

1) of human relationships

2) with God especially in covenant relationship

f) peace (from war)

g) peace (as adjective)

It is interesting to me that completeness and soundness are the first two definitions listed. After we are saved we are given the mind of Christ! We are given the keys to freedom from the prison of anxieties, worries, stress, and all mental disorders! He has completed us in Christ and given us a sound mind! I wish I'd realized all this back when I was in therapy! I've always thought of peace in other aspects such as our restored relationship with the Father, our ability to get along with others, and the millennial kingdom when Jesus sits on the throne and the lion and the lamb lie together. Funny, I have talked of wanting some peace of mind, and even talked about renewing my mind in the Word... but never stopped to think that all of that is part of Christ's finished work on the cross! Maybe I'm the only one, but I thought I'd share that. I never connected those dots! How are we to be given the mind of Christ, how are we to have that sound mind absent of fear, how can we possibly renew our minds in the Word of God if Christ had not made a way for it?? All gifts that the Father gives are a result of the Son's death, burial and resurrection! WOW! Just gives me renewed faith to be healed of all this depression and mood swing junk I've dealt with for so long.

Spiritual Disorders, Part 1

The other day I was talking to Jessica and said that I should change my facebook status to 'spiritually bipolar.' I was joking, of course... and yet... Why is it that I can have this super duper amazing spiritual high and then the very next day, or sometimes even hours later, I can be down in the spiritual dregs, moping and griping about God? It's crazy. It's insane! It's Spiritual Bipolar Disorder!
What exactly is Spiritual Bipolar Disorder? Well, it's kinda like this... I am saved by grace! I have a new nature! My old yucky grouchy self is dead, and a new Jesus self has been placed in me. I am righteous before God, and as such have victory all the time! But I live in the world... I have memories and habits of that wretched person that I used to be. I still sometimes view God through the lenses of my past. The problem? That me I remember no longer exists. I know that God isn't the big scary guy waiting to punish me and laugh at me every time I screw up. But sometimes my physical reality doesn't seem to mesh with my BIG 'R' spiritual REALITY. So, sometimes I am WAY up because I am focused on exactly how awesome and spectacular Jesus is and how amazing and spectacular I am as a result of what he has done in me, but sometimes I drop my eyes down here and listen to that little voice that says I'm scum, abundant life is a giant scam, there will never be victory over the trials, there are WAY TOO MANY trials, and I will never amount to anything spiritually.
That nasty little voice in my head is a LIAR! Jesus doesn't think those thoughts about my life; his thoughts are good thoughts! His thoughts are leading me to a beautiful place! His thoughts are making me into the image of himself! No, these thoughts are the whispers of Satan, who would have me to forget who I am in Christ and remember who I was before salvation. He wants me to FAIL. He can't take my salvation, but he can steal my joy, my victory, and do his darndest to steal my identity.
That's where the spiritual bipolar comes in... there are days when I am so confident in my identity in Christ that nothing can stop me!!! I am flying high in Christ and everyone's going to hear about it! Then there are days when it seems to me that I hit the ground with a giant thud like Wile Coyote and I will never find my way out of the hole that I've made for myself. Instead of jumping up and brushing off the dust, laughing at Satan's attempts and taking off again, I linger on my seeming failure. I get sad. I get grumpy. I get angry. I blame God. I have a giant pity party. I whine to everyone I can think of. WRONG MOVE! In Christ I cannot fall, I cannot fail! In Christ all is well! As the song writer said, It is well with my soul! There is 100% victory in Christ Jesus! There is no reason for this spiritual bipolar disorder to control my life! I am FREE!
What then is the cure for this? Well, first off I must submerge myself in the truths of WHO I AM! Who I REALLY am!
I am a daughter of the King! I am blameless, beautiful and spotless in the eyes of God... Full of HIS righteousness! I am bought with a price far greater than any price ever paid, as I am viewed as the most precious of jewels by my Saviour! I have been chosen to be the bride of the very Son of God, and He delights in me with joy and singing! I am loved, cherished, and treasured by my Jesus! ♥
Going hand in hand with this first step is renewing my mind in the Word. Day by day as I fill myself up with God-thoughts I will gradually find that my old life is forgotten - erased from my mind - those old habits have faded away. Finally I must exercise my authority over Satan and tell him to get out!!! Tell him his lies have no power here! Nothing that he whispers to me can EVER change what Christ has done in me! No fake physical reality that he flashes before my eyes can change what I am and where I am! I am seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and nothing or nobody can pull me down! It's done! Finished!
Will I ever be 100% free of spiritual bipolar disorder? In Christ, I believe it will happen one day!!! Maybe I will never see it on earth, but the day that Christ comes to take me home I will be transformed in an instant to that body that has absolutely NO traces of memories, habits and crud that have been picked up on this earth! I will spend eternity basking in Jesus and who he has made me to be!